


broken and bruised

by casdoms (moffwithhishead)



Series: season 10 codas [9]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol, Episode Tag, Episode: s10e17 Inside Man, Gen, M/M, Mark of Cain, vague suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-02
Updated: 2015-04-02
Packaged: 2018-03-20 22:27:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3667527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moffwithhishead/pseuds/casdoms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He doesn’t feel as much or as fiercely as he used to. </p><p>Certain things, though. Certain things hit him with the force of a bullet train these days and knock the fucking wind out of him.</p><p>Cas is one of those things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	broken and bruised

_"You want a war, but I can’t have you pulling me down_  
_Can’t lose control, that’s how I got to where I am now_  
_Can we move on? I’m sick of always waiting on life_

_So I’ll make my own way, that’s what I’ll do_  
_So sick of always waiting on life."_

life on the bottom by hit the lights

 

* * *

 

 

He watches Sam walk towards his room and wonders.

Wonders if Sam can tell that there’s something off with him. Wonders if Sam knows that Cas told Dean that him and Sam were “working on something.” Wonders if his brother’s going to lock the door to his room tonight. Wonders if he’s going to be able to fight any of this for much longer.

His food doesn’t really have a taste anymore. It’s there, and it’s vague, but it’s - it reminds him of prison food. Of dad’s cooking.

He knows what it’s supposed to taste like but it doesn’t.

Dean sighs and stands up, bringing his food into the kitchen to dump it. It’s fine. He hates wasting food but - it’s fine. It’s - leftovers. It’s fine.

His hands are shaking again when he’s done washing his dishes and he wonders if it’s the Mark or if it’s the alcohol he’s debating on having. Whiskey sounds good right now. Maybe it’ll knock him out. Maybe he won’t have another dream tonight.

They stopped being nightmares a few months ago.

“I’m  _fine_ ,” he breathes out and runs a hand through his hair. The coffee maker stares back blankly and it feels like it’s challenging him. 

Dean scowls and walks out of the kitchen with purpose, grabbing the first bottle he sees on the shelf.

It’s one of the fancy ones that you’re supposed to sip and savor, keep it for years. He feels a little bad sometimes, a little guilty after years of conditioning, for drinking a bottle of what has to be at least $1500 scotch in one night. 

The guilt goes away by the middle of the bottle, usually. 

He hovers next to his bed when he’s in his room again, and it occurs to him that he doesn’t remember how he got there.

He wonders if his eyes are black again and immediately swallows down a quarter of the mostly filled bottle in his hands. Makes a small noise as the liquid goes down his throat, enjoying the burn.

It’s familiar and comforting in a way that Dean knows isn’t normal. It shouldn’t be as comforting as it is but he doesn’t care right now. 

He’s shaky and on edge, even more-so than usual, and when he lowers the bottle he eyes his bed warily. Dreams. Nightmares, whatever. They all keep happening there, on that bed. His room is supposed to be his safe space. He doesn’t think he has one anymore. 

Dean grabs his phone and changes into PJ pants before walking out of his room towards the garage.

He’s been sleeping in his clothes more and more. He’s worried that one night he’ll wake up from a dream and he won’t be able to talk himself out of making it a reality. He’s prepared to make himself leave the bunker in the middle of the night and drive somewhere far enough away that it’ll take Sammy and Cas a long time to find him. To find his body.

He hasn’t decided on the game plan for that quite yet. 

There’s stairs in the back corner of the garage. He found them a couple months ago, one of his first nights back after being a demon.

They go up to the roof and there’s nothing up there, not anymore at least. There’s some pots that make him wonder if the Men of Letters had a garden, or at least were growing some herbs for spells and stuff, but whatever else had been up there is gone now. 

The first night he came up here he cried for hours. He threw beer bottles off the roof and into the woods behind the bunker. He screamed.

The second night he pulled an old couch he found in a storage room out there with him. It’s shittier now than it was when he found it, but it’s there and it’s huge and surprisingly comfortable. 

Dean sighs and lays down on it sideways so his head is resting on the armrest.

Him and Sam used to do this more, before everything got so complicated, so fucked up. Before the apocalypse, before hell - before  ** _Dean_**  got so fucked up.

They’d pull over on the side of the road and sit on the hood of the Impala, just watching the stars. Sometimes they’d fall asleep like that and wake up in the morning with sore backs and weird bug bites, but they had memories.

The stars are out tonight but it’s cloudy and everything feels ominous, like the calm before the storm.

It would be more unnerving if Dean hadn’t felt like that for the past two years.

He doesn’t think he wants to know what Sam and Cas were doing. Not that he doesn’t trust them, it’s just - they have hope. Maybe. Dean’s not really sure if they actually believe anything they’re saying, or if they’re just saying it to try and make him feel better, but they keep saying there’s hope.

And Dean’s just so  _tired_  of hoping. 

He’s not ready to die and he doesn’t want to die but he knows how his story ends. He knows that his ending is going to be worse than death.

Because he’s more Other than human right now, and he doesn’t think his body  _can_  die. He can die, sure, and he can already feel parts of himself slipping away, but his body... he thinks it might be immortal now. Something like Cain. Something like Crowley, maybe.

Somewhere in between. 

Dying would be easier. The whole thing, all of him dying, would be easier. He wouldn’t have to worry about what he’ll be like when he’s dead and his body is still out there without him.

He’s not ready to die but he doesn’t know if he can handle anything else being taken away from him.

Be it hope or free will or Sam and Cas or control over his own body, he doesn’t think he can handle losing anything else. He thinks that might be the thing that sends him over the edge. 

He takes another big swig of the scotch and closes his eyes as he sets the bottle on the ground next to him.

There’s a part of him that wants to come clean with Sam and Cas and hell, even Charlie, and tell them that he’s not sure how long he can hold it off. Be selfish and tell them that he wants them here, he wants them safe, and he wants things to be as normal as they can be until they can’t.

There’s a bigger part of him that wants to lash out and push all of them away for their own protection. He’s thought about running, or taking himself out of the equation entirely, but he’s scared that if he does that, he’ll lose his anchors.

They’re the reason he’s been fighting so hard. 

Sam’s been distant and Dean’s not really sure if he realizes he’s doing it. Charlie’s been MIA for a while now but he’s kinda glad. He’s still not sure what the hell to say to her.

Cas, though. Cas texts him, sometimes. 

He hasn’t answered many of them since the last case, though. Since the confession. 

But every time he gets a new one, it makes his chest ache in a fond way that he’s almost forgotten. It’s the same feeling he used to get every time Cas was there, in one piece, and safe.

He doesn’t feel as much or as fiercely as he used to. 

Certain things, though. Certain things hit him with the force of a bullet train these days and knock the fucking wind out of him.

Cas is one of those things. 

And he  **wants** ,  _oh_  how he wants. 

Dean wants to kiss him, for real this time. He wants to kiss him like he means something, because he means  _everything_ , and he wants to kiss Cas so he knows. He wants to wake up next to him, in his bed, wrapped in blankets, and see him there. He wants to make Cas breakfast and let him borrow his clothes and kiss his tanned shoulders when he’s tense.

He wants to build something real with Cas, something whole and good and as close to normal as they’re going to get, and he wants to give Cas everything. He wants Cas to have a garden and guinea pigs, because Sam said he likes those little fuzzballs, and maybe a place where he can keep bees or whatever. He wants to buy a house with him and he wants to see Cas’ face light up on a Christmas morning.

He wants to grow old with Cas. He wants to see his best friend, the fucking angel of the lord, in grandpa sweaters with white hair and liverspots. He wants to hear him bitch about walking with a cane and nag Dean to take better care of himself. 

But the Mark is ugly and fierce and it taints all of that. It taunts him, like a demon in the back of his head, and it replays every scenario he’s ever thought of for how it’s going to make him kill Cas. 

So he’s been waffling lately. 

Right after they’d cured him, he’d reached out. He knows that “I’m glad you’re here, man,” was weak on some level, but it - it was true. Is true.

Is always going to be true.

But sometimes he doesn’t answer texts or return phone calls because he’s scared. He’s trying to put some distance (as if they need any more of that) between the two of them to make it easier.

Maybe if it’s been a few months since they talked, Cas won’t hesitate to take him out when he goes nuclear. Maybe it’ll make it hurt less for him.

Maybe, if Cas dies first, or if Dean does kill him, maybe it won’t hurt as much.

It’s bullshit, and Dean knows it, but it’s something he’s got control over in his life, for now, and he’s exercising it gratuitously. 

He opens his eyes, not sure when he closed them, and looks up at the stars. He can only make out a few of them clearly but there’s three, scattered over the horizon, that are shining especially bright.

They draw in his attention and he wants to laugh at himself for getting fucking sentimental about  _stars_.

The clouds are muting everything in the sky tonight. The moon looks like someone tossed a lampshade over it, the light not quite as bright as it should be. Looking at it reminds Dean of a particularly bad concussion when he was thirteen that fucked up his eyes for a few weeks.

But those stars. Those three stars.

They’re still there. They’ve found little breaks in the clouds to shine through. The universe has lined up enough to let them have that, at least for a little bit.

Maybe they’re the three stars. 

Maybe Dean’s the star farthest away from the other two, the one that looks like it’s constantly flickering, like it’s fighting to be seen.

Maybe Cas is the star that’s highest in the sky that flashes every once in a while. It’s  _so_  bright.

Maybe Sam is the star that’s steady, that’s found the biggest gap in the clouds to shine through. Maybe he’s the North Star right now.

Stars die, eventually. They burn out.

Maybe Dean’s star is on its last leg too. Maybe they’ll both get snuffed out for good at the same time. Maybe it’s a sign.

He sighs and pulls his phone out of his pocket reluctantly, taking another swig from the rapidly emptying bottle. He can’t remember drinking most of it.

The text from Cas pops up when he unlocks his phone and Dean smiles.

> Sam is on his way back. Cas  
>  Perhaps you should get out of his room now, Dean. ;-) Cas

He’s exhausted and off-balance and scared. And he wants to reply to Cas, beg him to come home, just for tonight, just until he stops feeling like he’s doing a balancing act on the edge of a razor blade. 

Dean just sighs and runs a hand through his hair before replying.

> Thanks for the warning. Close call. Dean

“Come home soon,” he mumbles to himself and turns off his phone.

He knows he won’t sleep, not really. He’ll dream in reds and browns tonight and he’ll wake up feeling sick to his stomach and craving blood. He won’t be a hero in the morning.

It doesn’t stop the Mark from dragging him under.

 

* * *

 

 

_Waiting on life, broken and bruised_  
_This is it, taking hits, if I need to_  
_Make my own way, that’s what I’ll do_  
_Taking hits, tasting blood yeah, I spilled my guts_


End file.
